Amidst swirling emotions of fear and uncertainty, you place a call to a number your doctor gave you. He called them angels. Whatever.

Later that day you get a call back from a woman who identifies herself as a cancer survivor. She’s your age and gender and she had your same diagnosis and she beat it. A survivor who knows exactly what you’re going through…

Welcome to Imerman Angels, the largest network of cancer survivors who volunteer to provide high touch, one-on-one support to cancer patients.

Jonny Imerman, the founder of Imerman Angels and himself a cancer survivor, was on a panel that I moderated at the recent Point of Care Conference in Philadelphia. The other panelists included a pharma marketing executive, a mobile health entrepreneur, and a medical mobile technology investor. Together we explored how technology can improve the physician-patient relationship.

It was very refreshing to have the voice of the patient on the panel, but why was Jonny on a panel about mobile technology? Is it possible to use mobile and social media and still retain the high touch experience of a cancer survivor talking to a newly diagnosed cancer patient? Read Full Article Now »

In my last blog posting I noted that the thousands of health apps available today are beginning to generate good, accurate patient data. But just because the data is accurate doesn’t mean it’s meaningful. Especially when it collides with the real world of the healthcare professional.

There are three important issues that need to be addressed before this surfeit of personalized patient data becomes useful and meaningful to both consumers and physicians.

Data OverloadThe first concern is just data overload. As patient devices become interoperable with each other and with EMR systems (a good thing), they will dump raw data, whether it’s heart rate, blood pressure, glucose level, etc. right into the physician’s office. And frankly, doctors just don’t have enough hours in a day to be able to look at and process that information.

If you follow most internists today, they’re in the office all day seeing 15, 20, even 25 patients and then in the evening they’re spending three hours reviewing their notes and lab reports or they’re logged onto their patient portal site to respond to the two dozen patient emails they received that day. We can’t ask them to now review and respond to potentially dozens of patient data streams. Read Full Article Now »

David Ormesher CEO

David Ormesher provides leadership and direction for closerlook, inc., a digital marketing agency serving the pharmaceutical industry. As founder and CEO, Ormesher has taken closerlook from a small, creative media boutique and grown it into a recognized leader in creating innovative relationship-marketing solutions that help pharmaceutical brands build and maintain meaningful relationships with their most valuable healthcare professionals.

Since founding the company in 1987, Ormesher has created a rich, cohesive culture at closerlook by maintaining a hands-on approach to building client success and sustaining lasting account relationships. He has guided the growth and evolution of the firm, attracting a world-class team of account strategy, user experience, design, technology and relationship marketing services experts.

Ormesher is a frequent speaker at marketing conferences and is a recognized thought leader in the areas of interactive and relationship-marketing for healthcare.

In addition to his entrepreneurial leadership, Ormesher is also active on several non-profit boards. He serves on the boards of the Lyric Opera of Chicago; i.c.stars, an innovative business and leadership training program for inner city youth; and Global Relief and Development Partners, building the capacity of entrepreneurs in emerging economies. He is also an adjunct professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology Stuart School of Business where he teaches Customer Relationship Management.